Ever considered Twitter in terms of it being a "Human Seismograph"?

Brian Solis won't mind me pointing out that he likes to invent memorable turns of phrase. It's a common trait amongst communicators working on any cutting edge because sometimes existing phraseology doesn't quite do justice to the point being made. So here we are, discussing human seismography.

And two posts this week portray the seismograpic needle waggling wildly.

Firstly, Brian's post "Oil Spill Report: BP and White House Sentiment Spills onto Twitter" reviews the sentiment towards BP as expressed on Twitter. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this detailed analysis is the deleterious knock-on impact the disaster has had on sentiment towards President Obama. Of course, correlations offer no evidence of cause-and-effect unless individual exclamations of feeling explicitly express such a connection, and this is something social web analytics can examine.

(As a quick aside I'm not entirely sure how the oil spill is Obama's fault. US voters can't reasonably expect him to dive down and plug the leak with his presidential finger can they? But there you go, Brian didn't call Twitter the Rational Human Seismograph.)

Steve Jobs shows off iPhone 4 at the 2010 Worl...
Image via Wikipedia

Second up, Vanessa DiMauro takes a good look at Apple's handling of the iPhone 4 antenna debacle, and it appears the social Web has moved the needle when it comes to Apple's share price... to the tune of tens of billions of US dollars! Never let anyone ever question the ROI of PR again. (And on that topic, do take 3 minutes to listen to David Meerman Scott's ROI rant!)

When an account director left my consultancy to join the Apple UK PR team some years back, I couldn't help but wonder what that entailed exactly. Apple is, after all, renowned for having "no comment" until Steve Jobs elects to take the stage. In fact, when advising clients on their social media strategy I often find myself saying that Apple is the one exception to the rulebook.

But perhaps they're not. That was when times were good.

Apple isn't used to things going wrong (and credit to them for that), but this has left them bereft of appropriate PR and social media skills. They did not seem to be geared up to listening to and acting upon the early indications of the antenna problem. And the company does not seem to have trained their PR and customer service teams in what's acceptable and what's not... and deleting threads from its support forums is a BIG BIG NO-NO!

Is your company / are your clients ready?

Best regards, Philip and the MarCom Professional team.

New book! Marketing Lessons from the Grateful Dead

by David Meerman Scott of David Meerman Scott

Our secret is out.

For the past four months, I have been quietly working on a book with my friend Brian Halligan, CEO of HubSpot on a book project.

Marketing Lessons from the Grateful Dead: What Every Business Can Learn from the Most Iconic Band in History

The book came off the printer today and will begin shipping from online bookstores next week. It will be in stores throughout North America first week of August.

You can participate in our Follow the Band Book Tour (hashtag #GDbook). More...

linkto.tv’s video hotspots drive web sales

by Stephen Waddington of Speed Communications

I don’t know about you but I never use my TV’s tediously slow red button. Interactive it ain’t.

More dynamic interactive video formats are in the works. One example is linkto.tv developed by the How to TV.

I caught up with How to TV’s Russell Goldsmith yesterday and he explained how linkto.tv enabled a video producer to create linkable hotspots in video content.

Have a look at these videos for Jaegar, Pantene and the Westfield Shopping Centre.

The application is available as a tool to Brightcove and Ooyala users or as a do-it-yourself application on the linkto.tv site. More...

The 2010 Australian Twitter Election

by Andrew Grill of London Calling

I landed in Sydney at 5:30am on Saturday from London and by the time I had arrived at the hotel and checked in, the TV channels were buzzing with the news that the Prime Minister, Julia Gillard was about to call a Federal Election. All of the commentators were calling this the “twitter election” as apparently Julia had tweeted that people should enrol to vote.

[in Australia, voting is compulsory, and you must enrol to vote before the writs are issued.]

In today’s weekend papers,  More...

Bad Social: Impact of Social Media on the IPhone 4 & AAPL Stock

by Vanessa DiMauro of Leader Networks

By Ryck Lent: "It's the antenna, stupid!"

Well, sure it is. But Apple's (AAPL) handling of this product problem in the new world of social media and social commerce is worth considering in detail. Here's the key statistic:

During seven trading days, from the Friday (July 9th) prior to Consumer Reports' confirmation of the antenna problem and the "Not Recommended" review (Monday July 12) through Monday, July 19th, AAPL stock dropped around $15 per share. With a little over 900M shares outstanding, this means AAPL lost $12 BILLION in market capitalization -- a 5% decline. More...

Long but awesome: The Making of the Old Spice commercial

by Michael Litman of Dare Digital

via stephanie.posterous.com More...

Oil Spill Report: BP and White House Sentiment Spills onto Twitter

by Brian Solis of PR 2.0

This week BP successfully recapped its ruptured oil well in the Gulf of Mexico. Test results are favorable and show that oil and gas are, for the time being, confined. This news inspires cautious optimism in the hearts of residents and spectators alike. Online, however, the social effect continues to flow across social networks and social graphs, echoing anger, hope, and the demand for resolution and prevention from BP and the Obama administration.

If we were to look back and examine the extent of these online conversations and the associated sentiment related to this catastrophic event, we realize just how pervasive social networking is becoming to society. More...

5 Keys to Incorporate Social Media in Your Business

by Eric Tsai of Designdamage

Last year BusinessWeek published its 100 Best Global Brands 2009 and to no surprise, financial brands were largely untrusted which dragged down all brands across the board with them.  Moving forward, brands are rethinking how they can win back the trust focusing on the psychological aspect of marketing and advertising in an attempt to rebuild its relationship with customers.

You can see from the gradual shift in magazine ads and TV commercials using regular everyday people to lead advertising campaigns instead of celebrities with messages such as the “we’re here for you in this economy” More...

The 12 Principles of Brand Strategy

by Eric Tsai of Designdamage

In a situation where you’re selling to multiple personalities, it’s best to first connect everyone on a common ground then articulate clearly what’s in it for each of them.  The goal is to stimulate an engaging conversation that allows us to change perception, diagnose expectations and bring clarity to the dialogue.

That’s the essence of developing a brand strategy – the foundation of your communication that builds authentic relationships between you and your audience.  More...

An interview with Seth Godin – PR not publicity

by Philip Sheldrake of Influence Crowd LLP

Seth Godin is a perceptive individual. He spots things the rest of us are too busy to see, and then lets us know about them in an easily-digestible format. Sounds like a cracking formula for a best-selling author if you ask me… and of course he is. With a dozen titles to his name, including Tribes, Meatball Sundae, perhaps most famously Permission Marketing, and most recently Linchpin, interviewing Seth was always going to be both entertaining and insightful.

Seth packs in several super observations in just ten short minutes. More...

Facebook Connects 500 Million People: Defining a New Era of Digital Society

by Brian Solis of PR 2.0

On July 22nd 2010, Facebook officially announced that it had surpassed 500 million users around the world. This significant achievement represents a significant milestone for Zuckerberg and Co. as well as for social networking and more importantly for global societies overall.

To celebrate this achievement, Facebook released Facebook Stories, a new service to spotlight users stories from around the world and the impact Facebook has had on their lives.

In Mark Zuckerberg’s words, “We’re launching a new application called Facebook Stories where you can share your own story and read hundreds of others, categorized by themes and locations around the world.” More...